Friday, July 28, 2006
Maybe I do need some brain work
So Mark accidentally got me this Nintendo DS video game for my birthday: Brain Age.
I didn't want this game, I wanted another one. But Mark overheard some conversation about it (probably with my mom) and had it in his head that it's what I wanted. To make matters worse, when we got the package from Amazon, he ripped it open right away so we couldn't return it, so we got stuck with it.
Since we own it, and I figure my brain really CAN use a workout, I decided to see what it had to offer. What I mainly discovered is that the way I say "blue" is not recognized by the voice recognition software, and that means my mental age is about 70. Yay!!
It gave me some exercises which I did ok on. I did another set of tests and it said my mental age was 34. Cool, I thought, that's exactly right!
When you do the setup for this thing, you enter your name and birthdate. It excitedly congratulated me on my upcoming 34th birthday. "That's odd," I thought, "this is my 35th birthday." I thought I'd entered the wrong year or something, but then upon thinking about it, I realized that for the past year I've thought I was a year older than I actually am. I don't do the math every time someone asks me my birthday and obviously I got a little off at some point.
So for my birthday I get a whole extra year. Go me!
An excerpt from one of the Amazon reviews that made me chuckle:
"I would suggest sticking with "Brain Age." I've noticed an improvement in my handwriting since using "Brain Age," and I've observed my brain age drop from seventy to a twenty-three over one month of training. While some scientists have issued reports attempting to disprove Kawashima's studies, I believe that regular use of Brain Age has kept me sharp over what has been a lazy summer vacation. For example, I've always been horrible with telling people how many syllables were in a phrase, but now I nail that specific exercise every time after a month of training."
I didn't want this game, I wanted another one. But Mark overheard some conversation about it (probably with my mom) and had it in his head that it's what I wanted. To make matters worse, when we got the package from Amazon, he ripped it open right away so we couldn't return it, so we got stuck with it.
Since we own it, and I figure my brain really CAN use a workout, I decided to see what it had to offer. What I mainly discovered is that the way I say "blue" is not recognized by the voice recognition software, and that means my mental age is about 70. Yay!!
It gave me some exercises which I did ok on. I did another set of tests and it said my mental age was 34. Cool, I thought, that's exactly right!
When you do the setup for this thing, you enter your name and birthdate. It excitedly congratulated me on my upcoming 34th birthday. "That's odd," I thought, "this is my 35th birthday." I thought I'd entered the wrong year or something, but then upon thinking about it, I realized that for the past year I've thought I was a year older than I actually am. I don't do the math every time someone asks me my birthday and obviously I got a little off at some point.
So for my birthday I get a whole extra year. Go me!
An excerpt from one of the Amazon reviews that made me chuckle:
"I would suggest sticking with "Brain Age." I've noticed an improvement in my handwriting since using "Brain Age," and I've observed my brain age drop from seventy to a twenty-three over one month of training. While some scientists have issued reports attempting to disprove Kawashima's studies, I believe that regular use of Brain Age has kept me sharp over what has been a lazy summer vacation. For example, I've always been horrible with telling people how many syllables were in a phrase, but now I nail that specific exercise every time after a month of training."
